Provide Access to Information

You know, having being able to answer specific questions that trans students would have, so you know, like, “Okay, I’m trans, what do I need to do, how do I transition and everything,” like... We have the internet, but the internet is full of incredibly contradicting information. It’s having being able to have a high school

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teacher who you can turn to and trust and have answers or be able to point you in the direction of answers, would be... huge. (Evy)

This suggestion calls for a teaching practice that provides access to information for transitioning students. It asks that educators be a resource, a touchstone. Providing trans- youth with access to information might look like taking on the role of a ‘connector’—an educator who identifies and connects youth with community resources and service providers. For many trans- youth, access to competent healthcare so that they may transition, socially and/or physically, is critical (Dyck 7); in fact, Dyck’s report finds that early access to resources for those who are planning to medically transition (i.e. involving hormones and/or surgery) is a protective factor against suicide (7). As such, educators should make available information about navigating the healthcare system; this may involve referrals to community organizations that can provide the contact names of medical professionals who deliver effective and dignified services and who do not work from a ‘disorder model’42 when it comes to trans- youth. Providing trans- youth with access to information might also look like school knowledge that is expanded to include positive representations of trans- people in the curriculum—representations that appreciate the struggles and celebrations of trans- peoples’ lives and histories. ‘School knowledge’ is described by Jean Anyon in her research on the schooling of working-class children. Even though Anyon’s research is focused on a different context, her understanding of school knowledge applies here: “[School knowledge] reveals which groups have power, and demonstrates that the views of these groups are expressed and legitimized in the school curriculum. It can also identify social groups

42 _{In the ‘disorder model’ trans- youth are seen as individuals with psychiatric disorders rather than as individuals}

with unique needs. As Serano notes, receiving the diagnosis of ‘Gender Identity Disorder’ (GID), which was re- classified as ‘Gender Dysphoria’ in the updated Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), involves a “real-life test” monitored by medical gatekeepers that trans- people must pass to be eligible for hormone replacement therapy and/or sex reassignment surgery (otherwise known as sex confirmation surgery) (120-22). For a discussion of the politics of medical transitioning, see Serano, chapter 7.

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that are not empowered by the [...] social patterns in the society: they do not have their views, activities, and priorities represented in the school curriculum (49).

Evy pointed out to me the gap in school knowledge about transgender people—she recalled in some detail her school-based encounters with transgender identity:

A lot of it was lack of information, like, I didn’t really know what transgender was. I didn’t have any idea, like, there might have been, you know, one or two, you know, scary rumours about these weird surgeries you can get, and, you know... I think we may have watched one movie or something, you know, the stereotypical sad trans movie where this poor person is transitioning and their life turns terrible but it was more just [quickly] Wow this movie’s really sad and confusing. There wasn’t any explanation of, “This is what transgender is, some people here might have questions about it.” I didn’t know it was a thing that I could identify as.

In reading the youths’ narratives, it became apparent that their years in high school were marked by a lack of relevant and positive information (and representations) around transgender identity. Sandra Schmidt’s research highlights the absence and unknowability of LGBTQ people in kindergarten through to grade twelve functions of the school—LGBTQ issues, identities, and persons are missing from school knowledge (254). Schmidt goes on to suggest that, “absence marginalizes; it reproduces heterosexuality as normal and non-heterosexual identities

recognizable only in opposition” (254). At the same time, educative approaches that focus purely on those identities in opposition, referred to as ‘others’ (those who have been traditionally

marginalized), tend to dodge critical investigation of normative gender scripts (Britzman 156-8). School knowledge, in Deborah Britzman’s view, should be expanded to implicate straight and cis-gender students by investigating their own notions of gender and sexuality and in doing so, build awareness around their attachments to privilege (and oppression) (157-8). Drawing on Britzman, Short puts it this way: “mandated curriculum change is needed that also implicates the privilege and social rank of heterosexual students so that queer content in the curriculum is not merely ‘inclusive,’ thereby leaving privilege unchallenged” (“Don’t Be So Gay!” 101).

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These scholars call for educators to consistently interrupt the male-female gender binary system so that the transfer of knowledge about trans- peoples’ lives is not straightforwardly received by students in their (unchallenged) normative positions (“Don’t Be So Gay!” 230); namely, studies of gender and sexuality, which should go beyond dominant gender scripts, must be intertwined with all learning opportunities—bodies in biology class, literature that students read, and math problems that chart inequalities, as examples (Schmidt 254). Put differently, ‘queer’ content cannot be simply attached to a lesson plan as a “part  a lower or different part  of an undistributed hierarchical arrangement of privilege” (“Don’t Be So Gay!” 230; emphasis mine). Curriculum reform must involve ongoing, across-the-board dialogue about, and

encounters with trans- identities—trans- peoples’ lives and histories cannot be contained in a one-time lesson plan (Carr 82, 95). It is educators who are left to extract learning goals and general topics from the curriculum and from there, determine whether their lessons will embrace gender and sexual diversity, especially in Ontario where provincial curriculum documents do not mention specific content to be covered (Frohard-Dourlent 65).

When I spoke with Quinn, they described their encounter with a (problematic) teaching approach to health class:

Like my teacher, for gym, was an older lady  she actually retired the year after, uh, I was through her class  and her health class was very, um, heteronormative, like very, “You go through puberty and you get your period” [laughter]. It was no regard for trans individuals or, um, even people with physical deformities that make it so they don’t get their periods  ‘cause not everyone does  and, even like

sometimes she made jokes at the expense of trans people. Um, I It was a while ago so I don’t have any like specific... like, one time, she’d use terms like ‘she-male’ and stuff like that, yeah... She retired, so, at least there’s that [laughter].

In Quinn’s experience, trans- individuals were overlooked in their health class, and so was any acknowledgement of the diverse and ever-changing bodies within a common identity—as Quinn observed, “even people with physical deformities that make it so they don’t get their periods 

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‘cause not everyone does.” What this suggestion—to provide access to information—puts forward is that in order to make visible trans- peoples’ lives, curriculum reform is needed, beginning in the early grades. In September of 2015, as mentioned, Ontario’s Ministry of Education introduced an updated Health and Physical Education curriculum (Clark-Lepard 14; “The Ontario Curriculum” 6). The revised curriculum will reach all grade levels—from teaching consent in kindergarten to gender identity and gender expression in elementary and secondary school classrooms (Clark-Lepard 12-4). When I asked the youth about their perspectives on the updated Health and Physical Education curriculum in Ontario, they had much to say.

In Quinn’s view, the curriculum (and dialogue) may help to foster a better understanding and acceptance of trans- identity:

Well, with like the new curriculum that’s coming out I feel like that will help, at least some, because it’s acknowledging trans as an identity, which, will I think a lot of people don’t understand; and, because they don’t understand it’s like scary or it’s weird or it’s and I feel like if people could understand, like if it’s taught to them they’re less likely to be judgemental and, like, like you see it with like, there’s more people now who are accepting of gay marriage than there were like fifty years ago because it’s talked about, so people are like, “Yeah, who cares?” Some, not all people obviously, but...

When I talked with Sebastian, he made an observation about the potential for the updated curriculum to positively impact the lives of trans- youth:

I know the sex education curriculum has been changed, which is awesome. I am so so so very impressed with that. If that had been implemented when I was in school, oh my god I would not have the problems that I had leading up through school. There is going to be so many kids now that are going to look at, like, what’s on these slides and what’s on these posters and what’s being taught in their textbooks and like, “Hey, you know what, there’s a name for what I’m feeling right now. There’s a look to this. Hey, look, I match this picture but I don’t match those ones, and that’s okay because that’s in my textbook too.” Like you’re learning about more than just like guys have penises, girls have vaginas, end of story. Like... that’s awesome. So that’s probably the other big thing is definitely like changing the curriculum to include more diversity in terms of gender and sexuality because, you know, it’s not just straight people that have sex, it’s, you know, you have to educate about Especially in this day and age, when it’s more common, more acceptable,

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and it’s more normal for someone to be breaking away from the typical like heterosexual normality that is our society.

In moving forward, we must expand and redraw school knowledge around gender with multiple and layered representations of trans- peoples’ lived realities. This means bringing current issues into the classroom for critical discussion and debate (e.g. gender-neutral bathrooms in the U.S). This means including gender-variant resources in the school library and curriculum by offering or assigning books about gender nonconforming children and youth.43 This means inviting guest speakers, showing films, and hanging posters and other visual aids around the school that affirm the identities of trans- youth (Sausa 25). Above all, this suggestion, while broad and open, asks that educators act as a ‘connector’ by referring youth to appropriate resources and develop classroom content that is reflective of trans- peoples’ lives and histories.